Last edited by Hanzze on Thu Jan 13, 2011 5:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Just that! *smile*...We Buddhists must find the courage to leave our temples and enter the temples of human experience, temples that are filled with suffering. If we listen to Buddha, Christ, or Gandhi, we can do nothing else. The refugee camps, the prisons, the ghettos, and the battlefields will become our temples. We have so much work to do. ... Peace is Possible! Step by Step. - Samtach Preah Maha Ghosananda "Step by Step" http://www.ghosananda.org/bio_book.html

BUT! it is important to become a real Buddhist first. Like Punna did: Punna Sutta Nate sante baram sokham _()_

Bhikkhu Pesala wrote:The Buddha recommended one meal a day for health reasons. It is untrue that this practice is unhealthy.

In the Bhaddāli Sutta of the Majjhimanikāya the elder Bhaddāli was reluctant to follow this training rule.

In fact, the body can get accustomed to all manner of different routines. While in Burma, I ate two good meals daily — at 5:15 am, and again at 11:00 am. In the Thai forest tradition they eat only once, at about 9:00 am after returning from alms round. It was hard at first, but one soon gets used to it. Nowadays, I usually eat my main meal at about 7:00 am, then take some fruit at 11:00 am.

Eating only in the mornings is no hardship at all once one becomes accustomed to it. The food is thoroughly digested by the following day, and regular bowel motions ensure good health.

This training rule is easy to keep in a monastic environment as food is simply not available after the meal time. For lay people, it is much harder to keep this precept, as they may see food or see others eating, which can make you feel hungry although you have already had sufficient food for nutrition.

I don't know, but this seems plausible.

In my own experiences, hunger has a certain rhythm to it. And the rhythm isn't fixed; it's altered by what we do. If you only eat once a day, you might only be hungry once a day.

But it is important to get proper nutrition. If you only eat once a day, that meal should be somewhat larger than what a lot of other people might eat for one meal.

It also depends on how much activity you get. Monks who engage in vigorous exercise will have to eat much more than those who only teach, read, and meditate.

appicchato wrote:
appicchato...twenty years plus one meal a day vegi...

My recently moved Blog, containing some of my writings on the Buddha Dhamma, as well as a number of translations from classical Buddhist texts and modern authors, liturgy, etc.: Huifeng's Prajnacara Blog.

For a layperson with job, would it be wise to try not to eat lunch?
If some times in order to socialise, we have to eat lunch with other people, would the irregularity harm the stomach (especially a stomach with history of ulcer)?

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Hanzze wrote:Maybe the bacteria like the stressed one more Metta-meditation to the bacterias helps.

I remember watching a documentary profile on the australian guy who made the discovery and eventually received the nobel prize for science/medicine for it. He said that the testing methodology ruled out stress as a contributing factor.

Hanzze wrote:Metta-meditation to the bacterias helps.

Yes, maybe.
Anyway,its time to get back on topic.

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Terasi wrote:For a layperson with job, would it be wise to try not to eat lunch?
If some times in order to socialise, we have to eat lunch with other people, would the irregularity harm the stomach (especially a stomach with history of ulcer)?

If you were to "skip" one meal, lunch should not be the one . If you were to miss 2 , lunch should not be the one. Socializing and eating do not have to be equal , au-contraire they can be beneficial as opposites . Ulcer is from an unhealthy system (body-more specific digestive system) , skipping one or two meals (that are seen as normal in modern society) and eating proper foods at the other(s) will quickly solve that problem . Bacteria is in all of us, and is a must for us to be alive, killing it as many scientists propose is in fact doing same to ourselves. Again if some need "links/proof" of this it can be acquired with relative ease through google searches .

Best of health to you and good luck with your own healing, kindly pass on lunch only as your last meal or in time of fasting .

_______

Hanzze , bacteria does enjoy a stressful system , well said, and it can thrive in a healthy relaxed system as well, each will reap that which they sow. Bacteria is there to start life and as well to finish it.

The Pāli says just "eating at the wrong time" (vikāla bojjhanā).
If making a rule then you need a limit. Since there were no clocks in the Buddha's time, between dawn (first light) and midday was easily observable.

Plenty more food for thought at the above link, and some helpful standards applicable for lay people observing the eight precepts, e.g. you can take juice, honey, or sweet drinks at any time, but not milk.

Thank you for the link bhante. Unfortunately, I haven't found the reason for the rule there. I'm sure there's a good reason for it and I guess it'll be an itch that won't go away.

I've been to the local temple and observed danas. The lay people would very enthusiastically offer lots of food to the monks (to accumulate merits, I guess) and many times I'm amazed at the volume of food they consume in one sitting. At the local temple, the monks have morning and lunch dana ie 2 meals. I've noticed that most of the monks are not exactly slim and trim. And some monks have told me that diabetes is a common problem. Hence my curiosity about the reason for the rule. I understand about moderation and eating for sustenance but I always wondered if the rule might inadvertently encourage a "stockpiling" eating pattern.

Btw, one chinese monk explained that the Buddha forbade eating after midday because their alms rounds were in the mornings and the excess food unconsumed would go bad later in the day because there was no refrigeration then. He said that there was a case where a monk ate the left over food later in the day and fell ill. Hence the rule. Sounds logical but is that the real reason for the rule? Or even the only reason for the rule?

The Buddha praised moderation in eating (Sn.707) and encouraged this in his monks and nuns. To this end and for reasons of health, he made a rule that they should not eat after noon.

‘I do not eat in the evening and thus I am free from illness and affliction and enjoy health, strength and ease’
(M.I,473).

The Buddha also suggested to his disciples that they recite these words as a reflection before eating. ‘We will eat in moderation. Reflecting wisely we will not eat for fun, for amusement or for physical attractiveness but only for the maintenance and continuance of this body, for allaying the discomfort of hunger, for assisting in living the holy life and with the thought “I will end the old desires and not give rise to new ones and thus be healthy, blameless and live in comfort” ’ (M.I,273).

Taking the 8 precepts is sort of like going on a mini-retreat where there is more intensive practice. To this end, following some of the bhikkhu / bhikkhuni precpts is advisable to have better concentration, tranquility for the practice. In addition:

1. It is good for health, to consume all the food at once and walk (exercise it off later).
2. It places less of a burden on lay people who will only need to provide food for one meal, instead of many meals.
3. It allows for more time to be spent on the practice and teaching of Dhamma.